Powell relys on players who have been around the block a bit got super league experience rarther than risking a young fella who will make mistakes unless it's a talent like trueman who all ready at his young age is a top defender not saying it's right or wrong just the way he's done things at cas

The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have
Vince Lombardi

flow wrote:The castleford junior coach pointed out the other day , theys not as many kids playing in the cas district as they used to be .Less to pick from

As we don’t pay as much for the kids to play in our academy we don’t really get the best of the players. The best players are cherry picked by teams like Leeds, Wigan, wire and saints and that’s why they have a good success rate of kids coming through the academy. A lot of luck is involved in kids coming through your academy such as when we was poor a few years back so we could pick players like oggi Holmes, daz clark and Adam Milner but now we have a bigger squad they have a lot less chance of coming through. The latest junior player that was rated highly at our club was Callum mclelland and his opportunity didn’t come because of Jake Trueman who had one year at our academy and then progressed into the first team.

flow wrote:The castleford junior coach pointed out the other day , theys not as many kids playing in the cas district as they used to be .Less to pick from

As we don’t pay as much for the kids to play in our academy we don’t really get the best of the players. The best players are cherry picked by teams like Leeds, Wigan, wire and saints and that’s why they have a good success rate of kids coming through the academy. A lot of luck is involved in kids coming through your academy such as when we was poor a few years back so we could pick players like oggi Holmes, daz clark and Adam Milner but now we have a bigger squad they have a lot less chance of coming through. The latest junior player that was rated highly at our club was Callum mclelland and his opportunity didn’t come because of Jake Trueman who had one year at our academy and then progressed into the first team.

Good on us too! IMO academy players should be on basic pay, should be made to do courses and workshops etc to help their academic too. They need to be kept grounded. Too many kids become something their not when money and the lure of a professional contract are branded about.

We need a top class winger now for sure. Clare is ok for backup odd game. Peanut needs to go back to full back turner not ready yet.im also not convinced that Truman is ready yet either.im annoyed that cas thought they could once again go through season without forking out for a centre having failed to learn a valuable lesson with the full back situation last year.

For me, FB, Halves and Back row (SR/LF) are sorted for the next few seasons (to be honest, I think we could even shed a few from these positions).

Centre, wing and prop are probably my target areas. Happy with Eden on the wing but would prefer a stronger right-edge winger with Minikin/Clare, Gill and Carr as back-up. RE: Minikin/Clare, it's whichever DP feels offers better quality but also better value for money. Gill deserves a chance - think he's scored in every game he's played and this season is the time to blood him a bit.

Centre-wise, happy with Blair and Shenton but would like another centre brought in as decent cover with Storey as an understudy. Not convinced by Egodo and wouldn't have Minikin.

Prop - Cook has been fab this season and Watts awesome, Clark great impact sub. But I do wonder how long Millo has left in his legs and Moors' form has been patchy this season too. I also prefer him out wide

To be honest, I'd be looking at cutting one of Minikin/Clare, one of Ellis/Rankin, Aston, Maher, Egodo, Clarkson and using the cap space on those 3 positions plus anything spare. Gives us a squad of